Glasses
by Irhaboggles
Summary: Elphaba had needed glasses all her life and, just like with her skin, they were always used against her. Then along came Galinda. After a bit of a rocky start, the two became friends, and in time, Galinda went from being the one breaking Elphaba's glasses to fixing them.
1. Glasses

Ever since she was young, Elphaba Thropp had needed glasses, and sweet Oz how she hated them! For one thing, they made her look weak, and helpless, like she was totally dysfunctional just because she couldn't see as clearly as other people. For another, she thought they made her look quite ugly and stupid. Imagine! A little girl, wearing big circles of glass framed with thick black plastic! Not exactly a shining example of beauty... And already, Elphaba had been cursed with the fate of possessing green skin. The glasses only gave her tormentors one more thing to mock and deride her about. Sweet Oz, did she really hate those glasses! But unfortunately, her eyesight was so bad that she couldn't afford to go without them, so she was forced to get used to them and all the abuses that came with them...

Then, even after Elphaba managed to move away from her small-town home and hit a big college city, she was still mocked and derided, both for her green skin and her glasses!

"To think!" Elphaba hissed to herself as some of the students laughed and pointed at her glasses. "This is supposed to be a place of intellectuality and open-mindedness! But here I am, being teased like I was back in grade school, and all because I wear glasses!" but what really irked Elphaba was the fact that, here at Shiz at least, there were quite a few other students who needed glasses, but Elphaba was the only one to ever get teased about it. She understood that this was all really only an extension of what a freak her green skin made her, but that didn't make it any easier to take.

But in time, after a prank gone wrong and a party gone right, Elphaba managed to make her first ever friend: Galinda Arduenna-Upland. Against all odds, the girl who used to be Elphaba's worst enemy became her best friend and, as the days rolled on, the two grew closer and closer.

"Hey Elphie!" Galinda said one day. The two of them had been resting in their dorm room when Galinda spoke up.

"Hmmm?" Elphaba acknowledged, though she was still deeply engrossed in a book she was reading.

"Can I try on your glasses?"

"What?" that got Elphaba's attention, and she lowered her book with a stern and wary eye.

"I just want to see how they feel," Galinda replied. Elphaba continued to glare warily at her. Was this some sort of joke?

"I promise I won't do anything to them!" Galinda added quickly, sensing where Elphaba's hostility was coming from. And it wasn't unwarranted. Galinda hadn't exactly always been the nicest person to Elphaba and she was one of many students to have engaged in making fun of the green girl for needing glasses. Now, though, Galinda was determined to prove that those days were over, and she had no malicious intent anymore.

At last, Elphaba relented. She carefully removed her glasses before handing them off to Galinda. It was a very vulnerable moment for her.

"Elphie! Your eyesight really is awful!" Galinda cried the moment she slipped Elphaba's glasses on.

"Hey!" Elphaba pouted, though it wasn't like Galinda was wrong. Her lenses were really thick.

"Well? How do I look?" Galinda asked next, ignoring Elphaba's little remark of annoyance.

"Blurry," Elphaba deadpanned.

"Oh! Elphie!" Galinda huffed. "Why must you always be so difficult?" then she hopped off her bed and rushed over to Elphaba's side.

"Says you," Elphaba snarked back, but she was hiding a smile.

The moment Galinda came into Elphaba's line of sight, however, that hidden smile became very, very apparent. The green girl burst out laughing immediately, and it was loud enough for half the floor to hear.

"OH MY OZ! HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA!" Elphaba could barely breathe, but to see Galinda's dignified and beautiful face framed in ugly old spectacles that made her blue eyes seem to bug out made the green girl cackle like nothing else ever would. For just a brief moment, she understood why people made fun of her. They really were the ugliest, dumbest glasses Oz had ever seen.

"THAT IS THE FUNNIEST- HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Elphaba looked like she was about to pass out.

"It's not that funny, Elphie," Galinda pouted, but Elphaba was cackling far too loudly for her to hear. Rolling her eyes in annoyance, Galinda carefully made her way over to her vanity and leaned in close to get a look at herself. Sweet Oz! Elphaba was right! She did look like a moron!

"You can keep these!" Galinda declared at once, shoving the glasses back onto Elphaba's face, but Elphaba was still laughing too hard to hear.

Fast forward a semester and the two girls found themselves walking hand in hand through the Emerald City.

"Isn't it wonderful?" Galinda (who had since renamed herself Glinda) cried, enchanted. Everything was so big and beautiful! Mere words alone simply could not describe the decadence and luxury that spread out in an emerald sea before her. There was just so much to do and see! So many treasures and riches! So many marvels and adventures! This was beyond anything she could've ever-

"ARGH!" Elphaba's angry and pained shriek interrupted Glinda's thoughts and Glinda whipped around to see the green girl on her hands and knees. All at once, Glinda's excitement switched over to concern and fear.

"Elphie? What is it? What's wrong!?" she demanded as she knelt by the green girl's side.

"My glasses!" Elphaba replied with a wail. She had tripped on uneven patch in the sidewalk and fallen face-down. As a result, her glasses had shattered. Only a few shards remained in the thick black frames.

"Oh, no!" Glinda moaned sympathetically. "Here, let me help!" she tried to help Elphaba to her feet, but Elphaba yanked away.

"I can do it!" she snapped. Glinda let her go, but gave the green girl a small sigh. Elphaba's fierce independence was just one of many things that Glinda adored about her, but sometimes, Elphaba really did need to learn to let it go and ask for help.

Elphaba learned this lesson after about five seconds of trying to stumble forward through the city streets.

"Ok! This isn't working!" she griped as she was, for about the eighth time in two seconds, nearly trampled. And as she said this, she nearly walked right into a lamppost. Glinda had been walking behind her up until they, stuck between laughing in amusement and groaning in sympathy and concern. Now, though, hearing Elphaba's little surrender, she hopped up to Elphaba's side and took her arm.

"You'll let me help you now?" Glinda asked gently.

"Yes," Elphaba pouted. Glinda had to resist the urge to laugh and tell the green girl how childish she was sounding.

"Come on, you," Glinda teased at last. "I'm sure there's a repair shop or eye doctor around here somewhere," then she began to lead Elphaba gently on. At first, Elphaba cursed the indignity of being so helpless that she needed to be led around by the hand like a child, but when she felt Glinda snuggle up against her side, it gave her a moment of pause. Then Glinda squeezed her hand before nuzzling her shoulder. Ok, so maybe needing to bed led around by the hand wasn't so bad after all... A few minutes later, the couple had successfully found an eye doctor and, through Glinda's stubbornness, Elphaba was fitted with contacts. Glasses were a thing of the past!

With sight fully restored to her, Elphaba was able to continue the day with ease, but even though she no longer needed the help, the moment she and Glinda were back outside, she grabbed Glinda's hand once more. Glinda squeezed it knowingly and Elphaba squeezed back. Good as it was to have functional eyesight, Elphaba had to admit that the highlight of the day was feeling Glinda's body pressed sweetly up against hers.

**AN: This is based off a prompt I saw wherein Elphaba loses her glasses, but it turns out to be a good thing because it means she gets to use Glinda as her crutch and Elphaba is always up for spending more (physical contact) time with Glinda.**


	2. Glasses and Braces

Galinda stared miserably at her reflection. On her once-flawless face was now cursed to wear thick, ugly black glasses with lenses almost as wide as the tip of her fingers. But the tragedy didn't stop there, for Galinda was not only cursed with glasses, she was also cursed with... braces! Her once pearly-white smile that could dazzle a thousand people had been tainted, each perfect little tooth now blocked out by a hideous block of metal. A big silver wire threaded through every little bracket, tightening painfully at the back ends of her mouth. Words alone could not describe how disgusted she was with the ugly little freak she saw in the mirror.

"Why me?!" she despaired angrily, the words coming out funny because of her braces. She would never forgive the school nurse that had insisted she needed glasses to correct her vision (Come on! It wasn't that bad! She only ran into about five things a day! That wasn't too awful, right?) and braces to correct a slightly crooked jaw (And her jaw was not crooked! It made her smile look... endearing!)

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" she hissed as she pressed angrily upon each little bracket that filled up her mouth and made it hard to close. She was so tempted to fling her glasses off the top of the Shiz library.

But even worse than the braces and glasses themselves were all the memories swirling around her mind as she looked at her reflection. Every single one consisted of a time when she had made fun of someone with some sort of eyewear or headgear. Now, she had become the very thing she used to mock and deride. If that wasn't cruel irony, she didn't know what was.

The worst thing of all, however, was the reactions she'd garnered when she stepped into class, all "nerd-ed" up. Every single person she used to consider a friend had laughed. Fiyero had been the first in line to laugh, Pfanee, Shenshen and Milla now made cruel jokes and rumors about her all the time, Nessa had failed to hide how hard she was snickering and even Boq, the little love-sick idiot, had looked surprised and repulsed. Galinda didn't even like Boq and seeing his negative reaction had made her want to cry! Even the professors were never able to hide their shock when the prettiest girl in all of Shiz waltzed into class with a mouth full of metal and thick, round black glasses. The only person left in the whole university who had not yet seen her in her new condition was Elphaba! And that was only because the green girl was away on some three-day trip for one of her classes.

"What will she think when she sees me?!" the little blond despaired. It terrified her like nothing else to think that Elphaba might treat her just as poorly as everyone else was...

About a day and a half later, Elphaba was back.

"Hi Galinda!" she cried as she entered their dorm room with a big smile etched upon her green face.

"Hi Elphie!" Galinda felt her heart stop in her chest, but she struggled to sound happy that Elphaba was home.

"Galinda? Where are you?" Elphaba asked in confusion and amusement as she stepped further into the dorm.

"Uhhh, closet," Galinda said.

"Trying on more new clothing?" Elphaba chuckled. "Tell me, how many did you manage to buy this time? I was only gone for three days!"

"Ha ha, yeah, good one," Galinda tried to laugh back. It failed dismally and Elphaba caught on at once that something was wrong...

Five minutes later, Elphaba finally managed to use magic to physically remove the closet door. First, she'd tried to coax Galinda out, but when words didn't work, she tried to pry the door open. Who knew Galinda was so good at tug of war? But Elphaba was getting worried now and although she hated to invade on Galinda's privacy, she figured that if something was wrong, it would be better to take down the closet door now and apologize later. So that's just what she did! But what she saw once she finally forced Galinda out was the last thing she could've ever imagined.

"GLASSES AND BRACES!?" she bellowed, then she literally collapsed to the ground, laughing long and loud and hard. Half the floor heard her cackle-like laughter and she was quickly blinded by tears of mirth.

Galinda had expected this sort of reaction from Elphaba, but that didn't make it pleasant. Instead, it did just the opposite. Galinda had wanted so desperately to be proven wrong, that Elphaba would be the last person to ever make fun of her, but apparently not. In this one instance, Elphaba was just like all the others, just as cruel and unforgiving. But Elphaba's rejection hurt the most of all because she had been the one whose opinion mattered most to Galinda. To realize that her hopes had been dashed and that Elphaba really did only see her in the same way everyone else at Shiz did was humiliating and heart-breaking. Galinda went sprinting out of the room after that and she didn't look back even once.

An hour later, Elphaba finally found Galinda. She was all the way over in the biology building, hiding out in one of the empty labs.

"Galinda!" Elphaba exclaimed as she ran over to the little blond. "What in Oz were, are, you doing? I was worried!"

"Sure you were!" Galinda shot back. Her back was turned to Elphaba, so Elphaba could not see the tears streaming down her face, but Elphaba could hear those tears in Galinda's voice.

"What? Galinda? I don't under-"

"You don't understand?!" Galinda shrieked, all composure gone yet again. She did not hesitate to whip around, then, and look Elphaba dead in the eye before she went off on a giant tangent. An angry Galinda, even in glasses and braces, was the scariest thing Elphaba had ever seen.

But by the end of that rant, all of Elphaba's fear was gone. It was replaced by nothing less than the deepest shame and self-loathing she'd ever felt. All the years she spent regretting her green skin had nothing on how bad she felt right at that moment, finally coming to see that which Galinda had been so hurt by earlier: that Elphaba, the girl who understood loneliness and appearance-based discrimination better than anyone in all of Oz, would ever dare to mock someone else for how they looked. Seeing the error and hypocrisy in what she had done, Elphaba had never felt more ashamed or angry with herself. She apologized to Galinda, then, taking full responsibility for everything she had done, and admitting that it had been really wrong and hypocrite of her to treat Galinda the way the rest of the world had treated her for so very long.

Her apology, though rather long, was very sincere, and there was not a single moment of excuse-making or bribing for forgiveness anywhere. And Galinda, thought she was still very hurt by what Elphaba had done, was so impressed that Elphaba hadn't tried to make up some sort of excuse that she agreed to at least make peace with the green girl. She wasn't able to forgive Elphaba quite yet, she still needed some time to stew, but she was willing to not let this one incident ruin their friendship, even though it had cut Galinda very deeply. Perhaps the rest of the world thought it was shallow to place such a high value on appearance, but Galinda had always prided herself upon looking good. To have her best friend make her feel so ugly was a blow on multiple levels. That kind of offense wouldn't vanish after one little apology, no matter how sincere.

"I will forgive you eventually," Galinda promised. "But just give me a bit more time."

"As much as you need," Elphaba replied sincerely, then she offered a hand to Galinda. Galinda accepted it and they stood up together, walking back to their dorm room in an amicable silence. On the way back, Elphaba promised to hex anyone who ever made fun of Galinda ever again.

**AN: This is like an inverse of the last chapter where it's Elphaba who has to be Glinda's crutch and glasses are obtained instead of lost. It's still fluff though, so I hope you guys like it!**


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